fall equinox… talk dirty to me.

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Today is the Fall Equinox (9/23/2011), an Equinox occurs twice a year when the Earth’s axis is tilted neither away nor towards the Sun. In garden terms (given there are no natural disasters where you live), your garden looks good. Probably a bit tired from the Summer’s bloom, but still full and spotted with color from the remaining mild weather. Rain and cold haven’t put it to sleep quite yet, and you still have enough time to get those last Winter veggies in the ground before turkey day.

*I l o v e this time of year.

If this time of year was a man, I’d marry it. I find myself writing “Fall” over and over on my notebooks. My papers are doodled with, “Mrs. Jennifer Fall. Mrs. Jenn Fall. Mr. & Mrs. Fall.” Let’s just say if Fall was porn, I’d be subscribing to “Deciduous Studs xxx” and having a grand old time. Yep, me and Fall are getting pretty serious.

Botanically speaking, my garden is rather schizophrenic this month. On the Coast, we had a heat wave and frost in Feb, a cold summer, and the sun is just now warming up our sea-salt-soaked bones. My lavender plants have just been sheared back from their summer blooms, the annuals are filling out and flowering, but my roses, salvias and poppies are spent. Generally gazing over the whole garden, it doesn’t look bad, but not as full and flowering as was last year.

Ah well.

In my recent nursery trips, I was able to procure some fabulous black bearded iris, black calla lilies, black poppies and black pansies. As you may or may not have guessed, I’m really into planting black flowers right now. Maybe it’s my mood from the shorter days and the darkness descending, maybe it’s Halloween inspired, or maybe I just like black. Either way, it’s Fall and I’m primed for the season!

What are the Fall plans for your garden?

Alena Jean Nursery & Flower Shop

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Alena Jean Nursery & Flower Shop

 

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post about Alena’s shop! Other than being friends with her forev’s, Alena’s shop is one of my weekly addictions:

Cracked out from green tea at the sushi lounge - check.

Veggies & fruit (and those crazy good malt balls) from G. Berta farm stand - check.

Flowers from Alena’s – check!

Alena opened her adorable shop on 340 Purissima (x street Mill) in Half Moon Bay, in 2005. Nestled in the amazing barn her dad (Jerry Whiting) owns and operates his landscape construction company out of. Jerry has been doing coastal landscapes since the 70′s, and has created gorgeous gardens all over HMB and beyond. She started small, just using a corner of the barn, sharing the rest with her dad. As business grew Alena booted him out and e x p a n d e d, creating a fabulous flower shop and nursery. There you will find flats and flats of gorgeous Annie’s Annuals, and other hard to find gems. Alena’s style leans towards (grabs and smacks about) the eccentric… always interesting and architectural. You will find your basic and beautiful rose and lily flower arrangement – but you’ll also find arrangements with artichokes, pods of all sorts, tillandsia, moss dripping, wild branches… in all sorts of cool vessels. However, my favorite part of the shop, is the shop itself. It’s worth a trip just putzing around and eying all of the gorgeous wood architecture and interesting fixtures. Wide plank barn wood. Irrigation key handles. Driftwood. Yep, it’s rustic heaven!

Next time you are in HMB – or need some fabulous flowers – check out Alena Jean Nursery & Flower Shop!

340 Purissima, HMB. 650.726.3662

Hours – Tues – Sat/ 10 – 5pm. Sun/ 11 – 3pm.

www.alenasdesigns.com

Repurposing

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Behold!

A busted pittosporum tree that some gophers jacked!

Now, it’s yet another strange ornamentation affixed in my garden. I wrapped some coir in the branches, and nestled a bit of ‘Elfin’ thyme. Let’s see how long it lasts until the chickens demolish it.

Sweet dogs, get the fu*k out of my way!

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

I bet National Geographic photogs think they really have it rough. Taking dramatics pictures of lions stalking their prey in South Africa. Stealing gorgeous underwater images of penguins ascending in the ocean of Antarctica. Or capturing exotic photographs of the everyday life of nomads in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I have three simple letters for them: BFD.

 

Readers, blog photography isn’t the piece of cake it looks like it is! (Although, maybe it would be a bit easier with a piece of cake… like delicious lemon cake, or even a cupcake. I would take pound cake for that matter.)

 

To prove my waste of time theory, here is a photo-log of my trials and tribulations of trying to take just one picture of the darling pansy growing through a crack on my driveway. Alas, my mangy mutts got in the way. Foiling my efforts yet again! Until the last picture, when they left, but it still came out blurry and I decided to quit being a pansy paparazzi. You won this round (again, see this past post) Nat Geo assholes!

Where’s the party at?

Monday, April 11th, 2011

Here is my interpretation of snails at a rave.

(Brought to you by us propagating succulents and grasses, and scraping off the clusters of asshole snails off each one gallon, plastic container. I can’t express how revolting it is to feel snail goo imbedded in your finger nails, before 10am. Ungodly.)

Natural Aphrodisiacs

Monday, February 14th, 2011


Ipomea suducing the nasturtium


*To the poor, poor souls who hate Valentine’s Day… find another blog post to read. But if you love Valentine’s Day, and want to spice it up naturally…  continue below.

Her breath is like honey spiced with cloves,

Her mouth delicious as a ripened mango.

To press kisses on her skin is to taste the lotus,

The deep cave of her navel hides a store of spices

What pleasure lies beyond, the toungue knows,

But cannot speak of it.

- Srngarakarika, Kumaradadatta, 12th century


Valentine’s Day is for lovers… in what ever capacity you like to love. So, in tribute to love, here are some veggies and spices you may want to bring to the dinner table tonight – or every night for that matter.


Anise (Pimpinella anisum) a fabulous ingredient for making jams, cookies, salad dressings, and liqueurs. (*Also fabulous in sugar scrub form)Anise is the base for Pernod, a liqueur fashionable in 19th century Europe, when drunk in excess leads to madness and death. Drunk in smaller doses, it is said to induce “lust in newlyweds” and to cure impotence.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) The leaves are used especially with fish, and the seeds in salad dressings, baking, breads and eaten raw for good digestion. Is said to instigate arousal within one hour (or your money back!). Plus… the leaves are good for tickling.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) Sooo that’s why parsley is on the side of every dish! Some texts say that parsley, prepared as a balm for rubbing on one’s body (erogenous zones), produces hallucinations before climax.

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) Quite possibly the finest of all in the vegetable kingdom. They taste great, fun to eat and phallic… what else could one want? In Sheikh Nefzawi’s The Perfumed Garden, we find several recipes for reviving the enthusiasm of exhausted lovers: “He who boils asparagus and then fries them in fat, adding egg yolks and powdered condiments, and eats this dish daily, will see his desire and his powers considerably fortified.”

Carrot (Daucus carota) Otherwise known as the “widow’s consolation” (I guess it would be a consolation, depending on the slouch you were with…), carrots were first cultivated in the Europe in the 16th century and were brought to America by the fist English colonists. Due to the vitamin A content and its shape, it is ascribed the power to feed sexual appetites… in one way or another.

Garbanzo (Cicer arietinum) In The Perfumed Garden the young Abu El Heidja fulfills the Herculean task of deflowering 80 virgins in a single night (wow, a good night at the club!), all thanks to a meal with an abundance of garbanzo beans.

Truffle Also called “testicle of the earth” (how sweet!) this fungus has an intense scent and a sensual flavor that, unless you were dead, will be sure to illicit your sensual side.



Color Army

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011


Right now, at HMB Nursery, there is a myriad of 4″ annuals. We are finally coming out of the age of red and white holiday bullshit, and headed – trowel first – into Spring.

I spent my morning sinking 4″ dark blue pansies in the ground, amongst some California poppies, and adjacent a giant blueberry in mid hibernation. I love planting this size, since it’s so easy to quickly fill in an area in your garden with color. I kneel, dig, plop out said annual, plop in the ground and cover.

I can plant a pansy in under 5 seconds – give or take clay soil. It’s one of my many dark gifts.

Plant Sensitivity

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

This time of year we (gardeners, and the like) prune everything back for the Winter. Almost every mature plant in your garden gets some sort of hair cut, be it significant or a small dead-heading. But have you ever wondered what the plants thinks of all this?

I like to assume my plants enjoy when I prune them. My roses feel refreshed when I dead-head old, spent blossoms. My boxwood is happy when it gets a swift sheering on all sides; I like to imagine it feels like its just lost 10 pounds – but not in the “I worked really hard by going to the gym” way, but more in the “I have a hot date and am starving myself except for alcohol for the next three days” way. Shearing boxwood is like cutting out carbs for a couple weeks.

So. Yeah! I think plants like to be pruned, right?

Plant sensitivity has been widely studied since the beginning of… well, studying. I guessing (since that’s what you do on a blog, as opposed to a doctoral thesis) phototropism was the first noticeable, almost tangible studying of plant sensitivity. Phototropism is a growth movement induced by light or sun, or lack there of. Pretty simple, where there is light, a plant will move toward said area. The perfect example always being – sunflowers. Even (especially) as seedlings, they tilt and stretch towards a source of heat or light. And that we get. We understand this very obvious and visual plant sensitivity. But what about simply touching a plant, speaking a certain way around them or even (here we go! off to the races…) having a certain energetic way of being around them?

Take this picture of this orchid. The fine, tiny hairs on a Paphiopedilum orchid are purely functional. The trichome have evolved to grow for a number of reasons, namely to mimic aphids – which in turn, attract aphid eating insects including the Syrphid fly, one of the plant’s pollinators. Smarty pants little orchid, no? But by simply looking at these hairs they have a connotation around them that they could possibly be for feeling something else.

Do you think this orchid blossom can feel what I’m feeling? Does she feel tickled when I touch the small hairs on her petals or the difference of when I water her with warm or cold water? Does she have a preference between Snoop Dogg or Marvin Gaye?

I say, Yes.

However, your thoughts are more important… please comment.

(Much more to come on this topic… consider this a teaser.)

Loving This Shit.

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010


Well the title says it all.

I’ve pretty much gone to second base with Malibu Compost and am loving it!

I met the folks of Malibu Compost at this year’s Green Festival in SF. It was around the time that I was being berated by the hippies in the booth adjacent (for not being vegan and showering everyday.. my bad) where I found a beacon in the fog (or was it a cloud of patchouli?) a whole booth dedicated to compost! Yucking it up with the guys, I learned that their compost is certified biodynamic and their cows receive no genetically modified feed. To be honest, I was sold when I saw the logo… who doesn’t love a surfing cow?

Their poop in their words:

Dairy cow manure endows the earth with powerful fertilizing and healing forces that chicken manure, steer manure, horse manure, and bat guano simply don’t have. Why? Because a dairy cow has an unequaled digestive process which is enhanced by cosmic-life giving forces in her hooves and horns that enable the nitrogen in her manure to re-kindle life within the earth.

Our products are certified biodynamic by Demeter® USA, the American chapter of the world’s only certifier of Biodynamic® farms and products. Demeter’s strict standards ensure crops are grown with the avoidance of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, utilize compost and cover crops, and set aside 10% of the total farm acreage for biodiversity. In order for our product to bear the Demeter logo, it must be made with certified Biodynamic ingredients and meet strict processing standards to ensure the purest possible product. These standards ensure the dairy cows that provide the manure that is the basis for our compost receive no genetically-modified feed and have access to the outdoors. Further, we ensure our farms grow at least one third of their cows’ diet on the property, make efforts to reduce pathogens, and make minimal turns on the compost, thereby enhancing compost fertility.

OH! And they have tea bags! Compost tea is perfect for anywhere in your garden but especially your potted plants and indoor babies. To find more info about compost tea go here.

Needless to say, this is some good shit.


Baby Birds

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

I was doing a bit of gardening in the Tunitas Creek canyon, about to remove a large escalonia shrub – and found these little babes! Sorry for such raw footage – but I’m a dirt gardener, not a film maker people!